Boating Season has Arrived: Are You Prepared?

Boating is supposed to be fun and relaxing. Most times it is. On occasion however, there can be an incident. Now when I say incident, I don't mean someone spilled a cocktail, or your wife forgot to pack the sunblock. That is for a different article. I mean one of your beloved friends or family members was leaning over to catch a wave in their hand, and toppled in. Have you considered what you would do in this type of incident? If you haven't, I am going to lay it out for you here. Who knows, I may be boating with you someday and I want to make sure you can pull me out of the drink when I go for that unexpected swim.

The absolute first thing to do is yell "Man Overboard". Please do this loudly. If I am floating back there, I want to know that you realized i am missing, as I am sure your children or buddies would appreciate this also. This will hopefully give a sense of security to your swimmer as well as notify everyone else on the boat that someone jumped ship. If there are other people on board with you, put them in action immediately. You need one of those people to watch the location and condition of this person. If you are lucky enough to have someone else on the boat with you, they need to get any available line and flotation device you have on board. If by some chance you lose site of your overboard person, this is when mayday and your ship to shore radio come in handy.